Land Trust Gains New Partnership & New Name

Tulare County - Sequoia Riverlands Trust — formerly Sierra Los Tulares Land Trust — hopes their new shortened name will be less of a mouthful to spout and easier for people to remember. “The old name had too many words, funny words and hard to pronounce words” admits Executive Director Sopac McCarthy Tompkins. Soapy — as everyone calls her — knows that selling the idea of a land trust to supporters, property owners, charitable foundations and the community at large already takes a certain amount of explanation. Now with a powerful new nationwide “partner” on board, it is already helping the Tulare County-based preservation group grow and prosper.

That new partner is The Nature Conservancy — a nonprofit group with clout to open doors to foundations and individuals givers like never before — a group that has sent in new Project Manager Alex Mas to staff a local office — and a group that is well versed with the history of preservation efforts here because they were a part of it.

It was The Nature Conservancy that owned the Kaweah Oaks Preserve - 6 miles east of Visalia back in the ‘80s before it was transferred to a start-up group of local preservationists that became the Four Creeks Land Trust back in 1983. That pioneer effort was the start of this locally based land trust 20 years ago says Johanna Lombard, Development and Outreach Coordinator for the Trust. 20th Anniversary “We will be holding our 20th Anniversary party May 2,” says Lombard, “honoring founders of the trust Do and Dick Dooley and Alan George.” The event will feature as its guest of honor, the Executive Director of Nature Conservancy Graham Chisholm.

What started with one oak preserve has now grown to seven conservation easements and three properties owned outright covering nearly 1800 acres of private land both on the valley floor and in the foothills. There are properties in Three Rivers - it now includes 725 acres; Herbert Wetland Prairie Preserve west of Lindsay donated by Jim and Carol Sellers Herbert to the land trust in 2000 - it now includes a beautiful North Tule stretch of land; some 725 acres called River Ridge and most recently a total now of 640 acres of the Ellie North spread near Battle Mountain that has been donated and will be used as an extension of the Scicon school for nature study.

The land trust works with willing land owners who want to preserve the landscape through a tax deductible donation often preserving a way of life as well. River Ridge, for example, is a working ranch and even has visitor facilities - horse back riding and a working blacksmith shop offering classes.

The way the land trust works with landowners is all over the board, depending on the needs and wants of the landowner and whether they seek a donation or even some cash for granting an easement to preserve the property in place. “We don’t have a set cookie cutter into which you have to fit. Private landowners can conserve their property for agricultural, educational, scenic or other purposes,” says Soapy. In some cases property owners want to preserve a part of their spread yet develop the rest. Some want to save property taxes and other seek estate tax benefits or to keep the land in the family long term but limit its use.

Because of the sensitive nature of transactions, the land trust can’t say where, but is juggling probably a dozen major initiatives to protect familiar landscapes in our area - miles of valley and foothill grounds that if successful will help promote the vision that The Nature Conservancy and the land trust hammered out last summer setting up this new partnership.

“We came to the conclusion that the groups would be more effective if we looked at the entire watershed instead of just individual pieces of land,” says Alex Mas. That vision has paid off with direct funding for some of the current efforts from the Packard Foundation who gave the program $250,000. “We decided by working together (in this partnership) we could do things on a bigger scale and grow more quickly,” says Lombard. The result was a memo of understanding between the two groups that they would pursue their grander vision at least for the next seven years.

The land trust is helping cities too, like the City of Porterville who wants to mitigate the taking of elderberry beetle habitat to extend the Tule River walkway east of town. Now the land trust is working with US Fish and Wildlife Service to become the steward to oversee some replanted habitat elsewhere. They get a fee to do it.

The name change coupled with clout of The Nature Conservatory appears to be opening doors for large charitable donations as well. “The Nature Conservatory is already well known by individual and foundation philanthropies and now that Sequoia is in our name - we see a difference in the reaction,” says Soapy - “everyone knows where Sequoia is while only some know anything about Tulare County.”

Land Trust president Scott Spear notes that “all of our quality of life is enhanced by the preservation of open space we help maintain - including the fact that much of the space is still publicly accessible.”

The Sequoia Riverlands Trust has a new trust owned office in Visalia recently purchased at 428 S. Garden in Visalia. Phone 738-0211.

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Water Meters In Our Future?

Visalia - A new statewide bid to require water meters on both residences and businesses by 2008 will be heard in a key Assembly committee next week. The bill carried by Assemblywoman Christine Kehoe of San Diego has some strong support across the state and could change the way consumers buy their water in valley towns like Bakersfield, Fresno and Visalia.

The issue gets traction in this, the third relatively dry year in the state and the fact that nearly all coastal cities like Los Angeles already have water meters.

In Visalia, California Water Service says some 14,000 residences are on meters and around 18,000 receive water on a flat rate basis. “We went back in the 1990s and retrofit homes with meters built after 1987" in Visalia says district manager Phil Mirwald.

The cost to retrofit a home has been estimated by engineers at about $1000 a home - a cost that would be passed on to rate payers if approved by the PUC. Estimates of how much water meters save vary, but a recent state survey found a 20% savings.

Mirwald says his personal opinion is that meters help save water. “It’s just common sense that I’d be more likely to fix that dripping faucet or leaky toilet if I know I had to pay for it.”

Mirwald says that Visalia’s water supply from scores of wells is good although the water table overall is declining about half a foot a year. “We’re working with the city of Visalia and Kaweah Delta Water Conservation District on more recharge projects,” he notes, that could help stem the decline.

Visalia on average used 270 gallons per day per person based on 2001 figures for our mixed system according to a comparative study done by the Fresno Public Utilities Department, Fresno was even higher at 328 gallons per day using flat rates. Los Angeles by comparison was much lower at 156 gallons per person rate with all homes on meters. The matter comes to an April 8th Assembly Parks and Wildlife committees hearing in Sacramento.

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Kern Supplies Two Thirds Of State Crude

Tulare County - When you look around wondering who to blame about high gas prices at Tulare County’s pumps - how about looking next door - to our country cuzzins’ in Kern County? That county continues to supply two thirds of crude oil produced in California to state motorists, about 570,000 barrels of oil per day or nearly 10% of the US production of oil.

The county boasts five refineries putting finished gasoline supply right at our doorsteps.

The rich deposits were first tapped around the turn of the century with the famous Kern River field now number nearly 17,000 wells with two thirds of those still active according to the Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce.

The price for that crude has headed skyward since early 1999 reaching a record of over $32 per barrel posted price in early March of this year before falling back to the mid $20 per barrel today as the price of crude oil worldwide has decreased from nearly $40 per barrel to about $30 at press date.

Kern crude oil trades at a lower price in part because it is heavy crude representing both added cost for extraction and more refining work to remove sulfur content.

One of the larger oil fields in Kern County is the historic Kern River field now controlled by Chevron Texaco. Spokesman for Chevron Texaco, Ed Spaulding, says the company pumps about 100,000 barrels a day from a field that just produced 25,000 barrels in 1960. The increase is largely due to new technology that injects steam into the oil wells to get the oil to rise to the surface.

Posting the Price

Chevron Texaco regularly “posts” the price it will sell the oil from Kern River following the ups and downs of the world oil market. But for a large portion of the oil, it sells the oil to itself, to company owned or franchised Chevron Texaco stations. The oil goes by pipeline to the Bakersfield area, L.A. or the Bay Area where various refineries are located.

Spaulding says Chevron Texaco competes in the California market with other oil sellers and gasoline buyers “all of whom can go somewhere else” to buy the product if Chevron Texaco’s price is too high. “Refineries can buy oil from all over the world and that keeps prices from being arbitrary,” he maintains.

Asked why the price of gasoline at the pump has not gone down despite the fact world oil futures prices have fallen by about 25% since early March, Spaulding says it’s hard to gauge price day by day and station owners make the judgement what they can sell their gas for.

Critics say California does not have enough competition and that mergers of major players like Chevron and Texaco itself and its oil well to gas pump ownership speaks volumes on why gas prices stay high.

Another large field, the former Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve was sold to Occidental Petroleum for $3.65 billion in 1998.

A state report says California oil production declined slightly in 2002 with some fields in Kern County up slightly and other declining. The region that includes Inyo and Tulare counties along with Kern, produced 199 million barrels of oil or about two thirds of the state supply of California produced crude. Historically high prices for Kern crude in 2002 average in the mid $20 range has prompted the industry to push production even though experts had estimated Kern fields would decline more than they have.

Today there is a windfall at the mid $20s per barrel price even as motorists are asked to pay $2.15 per gallon for regular at Chevron Texaco stations. While the price is based on the speculative “future price” of oil world wide, the uncertainty has pushed up the same barrel of oil in Kern County that sold in 1999 for $10 a barrel to $25 per barrel from fields owned or controlled by the big integrated oil companies.

Energy Commission Reports

Talk of price gouging by oil companies in California has renewed discussion of a gasoline bank at the California Energy Commission and the state Air Resources Board. A study is to be delivered to the Governor by June. The plan would fill a 2.5 million barrel of gasoline reserve with some available every day for auction offering independent gasoline sellers a competitive chance and perhaps stimulating some competition in the state’s gasoline sales. Only six refineries produce 90% of the state’s gasoline supply, says a CEC study.

This week the Energy Commission released a report on the run up in gasoline prices in the state pointing out that gas prices increased 57 cents between January and mid March of this year. The increase cost consumers $20 million per day, the report says. The report noted that we continue to import 100 million gallons of gasoline and blend stock each month to met our demand and that resupply can take three to six weeks.

The report says the higher price of crude accounts for only a part of the rise we have seen and that a scheduled turnover of fuel blends for the summer occurred just as speculation world wide in oil price increased the price volatility. High prices in Arizona also contributed to supply problems in southern California.

Still, during the past weeks the report says profit margins for refiners and margins for dealers have been higher than normal with refiner margins going as high as 76 cents compared to an average of closer to 32 cents and dealers increasing from an average 10 cents to 18 cents.

The state study suggests the possibility of “tacit collusion” among refiners that in essence coordinate their activities. Finally the report says that from March 12 to 26 the price at the wholesale level of reformulated gasoline in the state has fallen 40 cents down to $1.15 per gallon.

The question is, why are gas prices down just a couple of pennies, at least at press time?

Silver Lining

While Kern County motorists may not like the high price they pay for gasoline that likely comes from their own county deposits - the local tax collector is crying all the way to the bank as higher revenues increase property values and drill equipment taxes. The industry produces one third the tax base for the entire county and the industry provided about $130 million in tax monies to local governments according to the Chamber web site.

High Kern oil and gas prices may be the big reason why the county government is far healthier than counties like Tulare next door that lack the resource.

Now, higher gas revenues are being passed on to all jurisdictions helping to stem state sales tax declines in other sectors. One estimate suggests an extra $700 million this year due to increased prices for gas for state and local governments.

Besides crude oil, Kern County also supplies some 58% of the state’s supply of natural gas - key for making electricity and also highly dependent of price fluctuations based on futures pricing.

As if for emphasis about the value of Kern County’s oil wells, supporters of a ban on off-shore drilling off the California coast got a victory this week when the Bush administration decided against appealing a court ruling that would block new drilling.

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Iraq Largest California Foreign Oil Supplier

At least through 2001 none other than Iraq has been California’s largest foreign oil supplier accounting for nearly 29% - almost one third of total foreign supply of oil to this gasoline and oil hungry state.

The figure comes from the California Energy Commission who says it still doesn’t have final figures for 2002.

This startling fact leaps out at you even as the state’s total foreign oil dependence has grown to around 29% of our total supply compared to about 4% in 1991. Foreign oil now supplies nearly 194.6 million barrels in 2001 compared to 43.3 million barrels in 1993.

After Iraq the second largest supplier is Saudi Arabia supplying nearly 22% of that amount. Iraq exported nearly 55 million barrels into the Golden State in 2001.

Despite the fact that suppliers like Chevron Texaco have processed Iraq oil over the year, since February of this year the company has not unloaded Iraq oil from tankers, said a spokesman.

Foreign oil has increased its hold on California even as in-state supplies from Kern County and Alaskan oil imports have declined in recent years. Alaskan oil volume in California is less than half its volume in 1993 as Alaskan oil wells are producing less.

Foreign oil is expected to increase in the state and exceed California’s supply from in-state and Alaska by 2006 according to a 1999 Energy Commission report.

Still as California motorists continue to fume at the high price of gasoline at the pump, it’s something to think that oil in the pipeline has been supplied by the very country we are now at war with.

The price of crude has skyrocketed this year with blame pointed around at a strike in Venezuela and now disruption in Nigeria adding to the uncertainty of supply from the Middle East. Still California receives little Venezuela or Nigeria oil (see chart).

After the US and Britain win in Iraq more oil from the country is likely to flow here, say analysts, actually helping to drive down prices the predict.

Meanwhile, don’t expect more oil from the Arctic Alaskan wilderness area now that the Senate has turned the idea down by a vote of 52 to 48 in recent weeks putting any drilling off for at least another year.

While the state received Iraq originated oil during the Gulf War, it amounted to only 4% back then. Since then Saddam Hussein has been helping to fill all those SUVs that have become so popular since then.

Surprisingly total oil use in the state has not increased in the past decade because many cars are more efficient. Still, while population in the state increased at just under 2% from the years 1980 to 1997, the total amount of road travel increased on average 3.4%.

The CEC study suggests our appetite for gasoline will grow from 13.9 billion gallons in 1999 to 19.9 billion gallons in 2020.

Helping to lower the fleet average fuel efficiency, California consumers buy bigger trucks, SUVs and now Humvee’s - a tank-like vehicle that grows the need for more gasoline.

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